Playing a Leading Role for A Century: Yale School of Drama

In some minds, New Haven may be most famous for its wide variety of delicious pizzas, but its true claim to fame in many circles is the David Geffen Yale School of Drama, which officially turns 100 this year. This famed institution offers master’s degrees in a variety of theatrical disciples, including playwriting and directing, but may be best known for its astounding list of acting alumni including Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Sigourney Weaver, Liev Schreiber and real-life spouses Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance to name just a few.

“We are truly the only graduate theater program that trains every discipline of theater,” says James Bundy, a former student who has served as the school’s dean since 2002. (He also teaches acting at the school and at Yale University, as well as being the artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre). “Typically, about 70 people graduate from our programs each year, with nearly 50 of them being in the acting program.”

Choosing who those students are—and who they are learning from—is Bundy’s most important priority. “Our most important decisions are who comes to teach and who comes to learn,” he says. “The number one job is to attract the most interesting people to faculty and student body. I think, when considering applications for students you need to bring an appreciation for individuality and difference; if everyone looked or sounded the same, that would be boring. There is no such thing as cookie cutter artistry. You need the imagination to project how a student will do in this environment and what they will bring to this profession at their greatest potential.”

Bundy takes equal care in choosing the school’s faculty. “We must give the people who study here—and work here—the resources they need to work at the high level,” he says. “The task of teaching the skills students need never changes; in fact, the building blocks haven’t changed in a couple of thousands of years, Still, many of the premises of theater making are being reexamined, from who is doing it, who is seeing it, to how we make theater organizations more responsible to the community they are serving. The context of our work keeps changing, as do the technologies—often in ways that influence the art form’s aesthetic direction. One of the most fun things about this place is the chance to engage with the most compelling artists of this art form.”

As Bundy notes, the program is very hands-on and involves a great deal more than academic exercises. “We put on about 15 of our own productions, another 12 or 15 at the Yale Cabaret, and students participate in the five or so productions every year at Yale Rep.” he says. “About half the plays we produce are written by playwrights in the program, and directors can propose one project for each year. Other students have less agency to set their own agenda—although the cabaret is entirely student-run. All of this is such important training.”

Luckily, as of now, this training is free to all students. “In recent years, we’ve been able to reduce student indebtedness upon graduation, and in 2021, the Geffen Foundation made a gift of $150 million has made the school tuition free in perpetuity,” notes Bundy. “I find it incredibly impressive that a philanthropist would do this for a graduate arts program. But I believe Mr. Geffen hoped his generosity would spur new ways of thinking about the arts.”

As for instilling thinking in the school’s students, Bundy sums up the institution’s mission this way: “One of our biggest jobs here is to impress on our students to stay in the moment, work with the people you want to work with, and focus on today,” he says. “We constantly remind people that careers in the arts rarely follow a predictable path, so what’s become more and more important is to help our students identify their value system. That will position them for lifelong growth. Ultimately, we’re trying to graduate people who can be influential not just in theater, but in all media, in philanthropy and other fields.”

–Brian Scott Lipton